may I introduce myself…..

'

well I thought perhaps I should reintroduce myself as I’ve been gone from here for so long….  hopefully you have been following me on Facebook on my travels and hence have not missed my posts too much. I will do my best to make it up to you in a few posts over the coming weeks…. but for today, for all of those who have been so anxiously waiting I want to officially release the much anticipated Block of the Month,

Cornelian…..

Many of you watched the very slow and long progress on this quilt as I stitched in my spare time from around October last year. It was truly a work of indulgence for me, and it is so nice now that so many of you are excited to join in the fun…

I embroidered it all by hand using about 20-25 skeins of variegated red thread. You can use the lovely Cottage Garden hand dyed #1007 Hugs ‘n Kisses red or the DMC 115 in a stranded or Perle 12. But it does take a lot!

  The quilt also includes over 500 hexies – but we include the fantastic new iron on precut hexies in the patterns so they are sooooo addictive – you’ll love them! You get to try all three sizes.

There is also a bit of appliqué involved in there – just very simple shapes – circles and the corner elements – and we include the appliqué paper in the patterns for you – just trace, iron on, glue over and then quickly stitch down by hand or machine..

My wonderful sister of course quilted this for me so exceptionally and that was at least half the reason the quilt won a blue ribbon – it is about to wing its way across the seas to the Portland MQX show so US friends, if you are heading there, be sure to take a peek… now of course you don’t have to quilt it like this to be as spectacular but if you really would like it quilted the same then I’d book it in now with Tracey… you’ll have ten months to finish it and she’ll have ten months to prepare to quilt them all!  If you’re not in the US it will travel in the Best of Australia exhibition next year to every state so you can all take a close look – of course I have given you lots of photos in the patterns so you can see everything you need there too.

I am thankful that you have all been so patient waiting for the pattern. I designed and made this quilt to test my new products (hexies and appliqué paper) and as we were still ironing out production processes and quality control I did not want to release this until everything was finalised and correct…and now they are – from our Australian printshop anyway… woohoo

so girls…. get ready to start stitching…. you can order as a full pattern set or as a monthly mailout from here….(no fabrics from me)  or find a store who is running it with various fabric options… I can tell you a few if I know where you are….and they are always happy to help you with your preferred colourway.

okay, promise I’ll be back VERY soon, lots of pics to show you of my travels, some sneeky peeks, a giveaway perhaps… and more…

hope you haven't forgotten me…for being so tardy on the blog..

hugs today

Helen

'